All shall be well?

On Friday, 8th May, it was a great pleasure to speak at a Private View at St. Andrew's Church (Limpsfield Chart) which featured some of Chris Gollon's recent religious work.  I first came across his paintings as we prepared for his exhibition 'The Incarnation, Mary and Women from the Bible' at Guildford Cathedral (which is now on national tour). It was a delight to see his work in the beautiful and tranquil setting of St Andrew's - and to be amongst friends including the Rev'd Wendy Harvey who shares my passion of Chris's work. What follows is the text of my short talk (further images can be found at: http://www.iapfineart.com/chris-gollon/?filter=religious-imagery-cg).

At this Private View, I was discovering (or even rediscovering) the range of Chris's engagement with religious themes.  It felt appropriate to be inspired and challenged afresh my his images during the  season of Eastertide - a time of joy, creativity and new life; it's time when we wrestle with doubts and hopes in the light of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Whether it's in drinking a glass of fizz or wearing gold shoes on Easterday, this is a season of surprise and delight; when we remember that we are called to live intensely and lightly. Every moment, every task and every encounter is a precious gift, full of purpose and potential; yet we do not know when we must face death to embrace life eternal.  Chris's images draw us more deeply into what it means to be human; what it means to love.

On Friday, I spoke about three things: Chris's work itself;  Julian of Norwich (whose feast day we kept on 8th May); the nature of pilgrimage.  Perhaps that might open up space for us to consider what Chris's work says about our own journey through life: our dreams, responsibilities and convictions.

Chris's work has a tremendous capacity to move us by graciously inviting us into stories.  In conversations with him and with David (Tregunna his curator), I constantly feel as if I am sharing a story I know well. I have to think carefully and deeply about how love, human and divine, is conveyed; where there are points of tension; how we interpret it afresh.  In the retelling of episodes in the biblical narrative, I am in a sense handing over what is familiar to me in order to receive it back with added depth, challenge and meaning.

Chris's work is illuminating in many ways.  He is infusing men and women with light. By drawing us into moments in their lives, he gives us permission to work our our own resolution or stay with uncertainty. He shares with Rembrandt the capacity of holding moments in particular narratives - we think we know what happens next, but we are held in expectation, hope, uncertainty or delight.

Chris Gollon - The Pilgrim (2015)

 

His paintings offer us glimpses of reconciliation and loss; grief and  contemplation; determination and despair. He pays attention to the detail: of individual lives and iconographic moments. He alerts us to the gaps in what we know, inviting to think about nameless men and women as well as celebrated saints and pilgrims.  In doing so he confronts us with that which is personal to us, and also a more universal narrative. Which of us isn't affected by desire, power, betrayal, forgiveness, weakness and resilience and altruism?

There are so many stories retold in Chris's religious paintings: he offers them to us that we too might pay attention to hands and faces; to tear stained cheeks and welcome embrace; to the physicality of pierced flesh and death in the Salmon Cross; to raised hands of the Pilgrim pausing for a moment on a journey, perhaps weighing regrets and hopes.  We wait with Rachel and Lucy, Cecilia and Alexis: in the lives of these individuals, something of the beyond breaks in. The particular is infused with a love that is all in all.

Chris Gollon -  Julian of Norwich (2013)

Julian of Norwich has been a particular source of inspiration for Christ: she is someone who,like Chris, is interested in the particular and the cosmic. She's a scholar and a theologian, writing in English; an anonymous woman who's named after a place. Chris captures inner assurance and depth of wisdom; and also, and this is something encouraging for me, an untidy desk strewn with papers and her glasses!

In the face of her own illness (and possible death), she had a vision of light and love; a vision of the divine.  According to tradition, she finds herself contemplating a tiny object in the palm of her hand; perhaps a hazelnut.  Its size says something about our human frailty; our smallness. That it is held carefully says something about the mystery of God. That all that is, is created and sustained by love.

One of her most famous sayings is that 'all shall be well'; it'd be easy to pass that off as a truism; a naive or patronising optimism. But it is worth considering that her insight is forged in the crucible of her own vulnerability; perhaps in those moments we see our selves and each other as we really are. We long to reach out in love; rooted in the assurance that we are loved. Our human capacity to get caught up in things; to make mistakes; is met by God's capacity to love and restore. That is the arch of Julian's story: a story of creation and freedom; of our propensity to sin and God's gift forgiveness; of frailty and new creation; of knowing that we are made and redeemed in love

That 'being loved' is made manifest in Jesus Christ. It is poignant that either side of the altar we see two of Chris's new paintings of Mary at the base of the cross - her stillness, her tenacity, her grief and her love is evident. The one out of view is her Lord, Jesus Christ, who pours out his love to draw all people to himself.  Chris's technique infusing light - in anticipation of resurrection; hints  of yellow and luminous blues amidst the darkness.  

Chris Gollon - Study (I) for Mary at the Base of the Cross (l) and Study (II) for Mary at the Base of the Cross (r), 2015

Love gives, waits, endures and wins. All shall be well.
 
So here we are in the midst of Eastertide: a season of new life, which boldly, foolishly or wisely declare that death is not the final reality, it does not have the final word; that asserts that love wins.  It's also a significant moment in our national life. Today is the 70th anniversary of VE Day; today we have a new government.  In all that has been said in defeat and victory, in remembrance and hope, we are reminded of the the importance of our earthly lives. We are pilgrim people - journeying on. We do so in the assurance that  if love wins; if in God all shall be well, then all we do has meaning purpose. We are to live more intensely; yet lightly because life is a gift we receive, share and let go of.

Chris makes us pay attention to pilgrims; to people like Alexis, The Poor Pilgrim. Who knows his reasons for abandoning his bride at the altar?  Why would a wealthy man abandon his position of wealth and influence, choosing to live in itinerant life in the wilderness?  Having abandoned his comfortable life, he was reliant on the generosity of others. Perhaps those who saw his humanity - his vulnerability and need - were moved to give; and in their response something of God's grace is revealed. Alexis in turn shared what he received from others with those faced by misfortune.

Chris Gollon - Alexis, The Poor Pilgrim (2015)

He discovered who he was called to be in a radically disruptive way; his life pointed to human interdependence and generosity, rooted in the love God. In Pilgrim, Chris challenges us to think about our desires and temptations and mistakes; it challenges us to think about forgiveness, new beginnings and our own callings.

Chris gives us permission to ask questions and to wonder in these paintings:  in amusician and a scholar we see gifts used in praise of God and in love for others.  We see a forgiven son and a compassionate father - the glasses celebratory fizz is open the story afresh to joy or reunion, and the absence of an older brother.   Life is complicated and fragile; love forgives and restores.

 I remain indebted to Chris for making me think more deeply; he gives us back a narrative that leaves us challenged and changed; he invites us to inhabit those stories, human and divine. As we do so perhaps we ponder the mystery of love divine all loves excelling.  Do we see in them Julian's assurance that all shall be well?


© 2015 Julie Gittoes